Microsoft’s Craig Mundie looks after the company’s long-term strategy, overseeing one of the largest computer science research organisations in the world – and he sees a future of invisible technology using natural user interfaces delivering much more immersive interactive experiences.

File under: no surprise there then. However, it wasn't that fact that a Microsoft man was slagging off the Sony PS3 just before Xmas that caught my attention, but the irony of what was being said.

When Google launched a real time interactive 3D avatar world called Lively it promised the ability to express yourself in a more fun way. So why is it now dropping a bomb on Lively users by committing Second Suicide?

When cartoons get caught with their pants down, the real life consequences are not always funny - as Dave Barmy has discovered.

For many people, a 'second life' can become just as real as the first one. Take the Japanese woman who killed her virtual husband after he divorced her in a game called Maple Story, and now finds herself under arrest in the real world.

Google has launched Lively, an immersive 3D world populated by avatars and which lets you create your own space in which to chat. Sound familiar? So just what is Google doing jumping aboard the Second Life bandwagon?

It hardly seems possible, but the immersive 3D virtual fantasy world of Second Life is 5 years old. To celebrate, Linden Lab is staging a Virtual World's Fair which might just be the biggest birthday party never held.